The company media’s dedication to preventing autocracy proves fickle.
CNN anchor Jim Acosta is fated to be a barometer of his community’s relationship with Donald Trump. Throughout Trump’s first time period, Acosta’s robust questioning at press conferences gave CNN credibility as a information outlet uncowed by the president’s bullying and prepared to uphold the precept of accountability. In 2018, Trump denounced Acosta as a “impolite, horrible individual” and the White Home revoked Acosta’s press cross. CNN sued Trump and his high aides on behalf of Acosta, efficiently forcing the White Home to present the reporter again his press cross.
If Acosta’s jousting with Trump was as soon as celebrated by CNN, it has now turn into a supply of disgrace. With Trump profitable not only a second time period but in addition having, for the primary time, a well-liked vote victory (nonetheless slender), CNN and different company media retailers have been totally cowed. Final Thursday within the e-newsletter Standing, Oliver Darcy, a former CNN journalist, reported that CNN CEO Mark Thompson had phoned Acosta and “delivered the veteran journalist a sudden and unusual proposal: Transfer your present to midnight and anchor it till 2am ET.” Acosta presently has a morning present that runs on 10 am ET. A CNN worker advised Darcy, “They wish to do away with Acosta to throw a bone to Trump. Midnight shouldn’t be a critical provide when his rankings are among the many greatest on the community.”
Mediaite followed up Darcy’s reporting with different quotes from present and former CNN staff, who have been practically unanimous in being shocked by the community’s habits. One staffer mentioned, “Jim made a profession and identify for himself by asking robust questions and holding energy to account. That included Trump. So it is going to be fascinating to see if this type of transfer has some type of chilling impact or sends a message to different reveals and EPs about how the community needs to interact with this new administration.” One other staffer was “baffled” by the proposed sidelining of Acosta, noting, “It looks as if an try to appease Trump, who is rarely appeased by something.”
On Tuesday, Darcy reported that the day earlier than Trump’s inauguration Thompson held a digital editorial assembly the place he
provided steering about how he wished to see the community cowl Inauguration Day. Thompson indicated to attendees, I’m advised, that he wished his journalists to be forward-thinking and to keep away from pre-judging Trump. He cautioned in opposition to expressing any outrage of their very own, as lots of the anchors who make up CNN’s roster of journalists had beforehand accomplished with regularity throughout Trump’s first time period.
CNN’s shift mirrors a bigger transformation within the company media. Throughout Trump’s first time period, many retailers discovered it worthwhile to cater to widespread liberal outrage over Trump. Below the umbrella label of “resistance liberalism” emerged a real mass motion that sought to combat Trumpism by protests and electoral organizing. Resistance liberalism had its share of faults—notably a propensity for conspiracy theories evident within the wilder speculations about Trump’s attainable ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin—however it was additionally a salutary widespread engagement with democracy.
The mainstream media, typically cynically but in addition with real investigative reporting, tried to harness the brand new viewers of resistance liberals. In 2017, The Washington Submit adopted the slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” However even earlier than Trump received his second time period, the preventing spirit of resistance liberalism had waned, weakened by years of defending the usually out-of-touch Biden administration. It’s notable that in 2024, roughly 75 percent of the nation’s largest newspapers—together with The Washington Submit, USA Right now, and the Los Angeles Instances—refused to endorse any candidate for president. Earlier this month, the Submit adopted a brand new mission assertion: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.” Whereas “Democracy Dies in Darkness” will be criticized for being melodramatic and self-important, the brand new credo suggests a newspaper not dedicated to journalism in any respect however devoted as an alternative to easy leisure.
Present Concern
The retreat from an adversarial relationship to Trump is undoubtedly rooted in financial self-interest. As company consolidation of the media intensifies, information retailers are more and more beholden to leviathan guardian entities which can be deeply entangled with affairs of the state. That is particularly the case since Donald Trump has not been shy about threatening to make use of his presidential energy in opposition to enterprise leaders who defy him. Final fall, Trump threatened Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with “life in jail.” Not surprisingly, Zuckerberg has swiftly moved to appease Trump by creating insurance policies at Fb that swimsuit the president—notably the positioning’s latest extreme curbing of fact-checking.
The New York Submit reports that “CNN’s company guardian, Warner Bros. Discovery, has made it clear it needs the community to undertake a extra impartial tone in its dealings with Trump.” The Washington Submit, in fact, is owned by Jeff Bezos, one of many world’s richest males, whose in depth enterprise pursuits, notably at Amazon, require him to maintain on the nice aspect of Trump.
The abject submission of retailers akin to CNN and The Washington Submit is not only a lesson within the risks of company management of the media but in addition a reminder of the worth of unbiased media. The alliance between the mainstream media and resistance liberalism was at all times precarious and doubtful. Even when CNN was extra vital of Trump than they’re now, it was on grounds friendlier to a secure centrism than any progressive politics: therefore CNN’s onetime promotion of Russiagate and constant elevation of By no means Trump Republicans. The lesson progressives ought to take is that company media is rarely pleasant terrain and to construct a long-lasting opposition you want unbiased retailers akin to Democracy Now!, ProPublica and, dare we are saying it, The Nation.
